City's developers say green future is here.

Sustainable building pioneers, including representatives of Tishman Speyer, Forest City Ratner and Silverstein Properties, met last week to debate why, despite media hype that most builders are chomping on the green apple, there are currently only eight fully LEED certified buildings in New York City.

The developers used the New York Greater Construction User Council's Technology Forum held at the Sheraton Hotel and Tower as their platform for discussing the bottom line of green building, which has been catching on, but still has some way to go before it becomes the norm in the market. Panelists disagreed whether or not higher initial construction costs caused builders to shy away from building green.

"Any developer who says he tacks on 20% higher costs to build green doesn't know what they are talking about," said Michael Deane, LEED AP, operations manager of Turner Construction Company, which has worked on 85 green projects since 2003. "Turner has delivered projects with gold and silver LEED ratings at lower or no added additional costs."

"I'll tell you right now, that despite what others on the panel have said, it costs a lot of money to build green," said Jack Klein, vice president of construction for Silverstein Properties, developer of the Gold LEED certified 7 World Trade Center. "Just the process of documenting the work alone to apply for LEED building was a fulltime job for two people in my office. Between green building and sustainable design added a 10% minimum to the cost of 7 World Trade Center."

Deane said that, as developers gain experience with green building, those costs dissipate.

Developers may be also be impeded from incorporating green into their projects as they adapt to unprecedented changes in the industry and the world. Tom Scarola, senior director and director of engineering for Tishman Speyer Properties, which was responsible for greening Battery Park City and the Goldman Sachs Building, noted that the higher land costs coupled with the higher construction costs can force companies to choose between green building and security features, which have only recently emerged as vital components to the industry.

"We spend millions of dollars on top notch security," Scarola said. "For example, if we want to test a building, we will often build a facade somewhere nearby and then blow it up to determine how it will fare. This money competes with the money for green and sustainable buildings."

Yet the 102 buildings currently registered with the US Green Building Council which will be evaluated for certification at some later date, proves green building is a more profitable endeavor now than it was in the past.

The primary reason for this--whether it is truly the result of hard core scientific data or simply because it is trendy--is the buyer's acceptance of green.

One tell-tale sign of that acceptance is the increased integration of open landscaped space into large-scale projects such as Atlantic Yards, Hudson River Park, Battery Park City, and Columbia University's expansion, said Philip Pitruzzello, vice president of Manhattanville Capital Construction.

"Customers prefer to shop on green streets. Landscaping has a positive effect on real estate values. Take Bryant Park as an example, and you can see the incredible return green spaces have for real estate," Pitruzzello said.

As designers and developers become more entrenched in green building methods, they become less specialized and carry less of a premium, Deane said. Materials like low VOC paint that can now be purchased on the shelves of any home building store also contributes to the green profit margin., he said.

This helps builders hampered by smaller budgets to pick materials from the tree.

Developers note that many small-scale green elements which can be bought on the cheap to replace antiquated, inefficient materials in office buildings, can go a long way. Efficient lighting, which Scarola calls the "low hanging fruit," of green materials, has been proven to increase employee productivity by 20%.

This experience may propel them to compete for larger scale green projects in the future, he said.

"We are coming to a time when LEED will be the definition of a Class A building," Deane said.

"When the market asks for it, we can build it. That is an incredible change."